Lightspine

Good question, I understand your concerns! Maybe I relied a bit too much on that WoB. I do think that Ishar is the most "special" of the Heralds. As is mentioned in Oathbringer, he was the one who came up with the Oathpact and called the "Binder of Gods". Conversely, you could say that Taln is more special because he never broke and because he was the only "commoner" (if that's the right term. He wasn't royalty). Nale and Shalash both believe that Ishar hasn't gone mad, although WoB suggests otherwise. I thought the other Heralds may have thought he was more sane because he didn't have the focused attention of one of the Unmade. Another reason I thought Ishar was unique was because I of the theory I tied in about the Unmade being formed from the Heralds. To be clear, I don't believe that they had to have broken under the torture for fragments of their soul to be twisted. Ishar's power is all about binding things together, including souls, so if any of the Heralds were able to keep pieces of their soul from being torn away and remade into the Unmade, it would be Ishar. Combined with that WoB about the Bondsmiths not having a corresponding Unmade, this pointed me towards him. Lastly, I thought that Taln being bound to an Unmade tied together really well with the fact that Chemoarish is a complete unknown. I found it an elegant solution to the lack of information we have on Chemoarish. If Taln were exempt from having an Unmade, then there would be nine Unmade on Roshar during the Era of Solitude and there must be some other reason that we don't see Chemoarish.

I can see that interpretation. However, I think you misinterpreted my post. I mention that I believe Ishar to be the only Herald not associated with an Unmade, due to a WoB i cited and also because Nale says he's the only Herald who is "whole." My theory wasn't that Taln didn't have an Unmade, but that his Unmade was bound with him on Braize until he broke, and there were thus only 8 Unmade active on Roshar following Aharietiam. Apologies if I didn't make that very clear in the post! I will add a TL;DR to help.

One of my very first posts on the 17th shard was about the fact that Kalak notices violet blood on the battlefield of Aharietiam during the prelude to the Way of Kings. The only creature we've met with violet blood is the Chasmfiend, so I speculated that they were somehow involved in Desolations. I haven't thought about the post in years, but your theory reminded me of it. Perhaps Laceryn also have violet blood.

This theory is more like two theories that are loosely connected. My first theory is born from the ravings of Jezrien, when he is in the form of the Ahu on the beggar's porch in Kholinar: These three quotes from Jezrien seemingly establish several things: Jeizren hears voices in his head, much like Dalinar's and Szeth's. These voices have been confirmed by WoB to be tied somehow to the realmatics of the Cosmere, and I don't think it would be terribly contentious to say that they're specifically tied to the regional conditions found on Roshar. Seeing Dalinar's suffering, Jezrien leaps to the assumption that it is the consequence of one of the Unmade. He is correct on this, as Dalinar's actions at the Rift were being influenced by Nergaoul. In his third quote, Jezrien shows surprising wisdom given his current state. He is acknowledging responsibility for his actions, in a way which parallels Dalinar's moment of triumph at the battle of Thaylen Field, where Dalinar rejects Odium and accepts responsibility for being driven to kill by Nergaoul. In addition, Jezrien disturbingly seems to describe being tortured by the Unmade. Looking at theses statements, it becomes easy to wonder whether the Unmade have had a hand in Jezrien's current condition. After all, he seems to be correctly conflating Dalinar's experiences with his own. Additionally, Jezrien's emphasized use of "we" in the third quote can be interpreted to refer to himself and Dalinar, but perhaps it could refer to all of the Heralds. However, something's definitely not fitting the picture here. Although Dalinar was under Nergaoul's influence during the actions which led him to hear these voices, Szeth wasn't. The commonality between Dalinar's and Szeth's conditions doesn't seem to be the Unmade, but rather the regret they hold over the slaughter they have committed. To explain this, I bring you this quote from Chapter 90 of Oathbringer: Notice, first of all, that Szeth's case is actually weaker than Dalinar's. Szeth doesn't hear his voices as constantly as Dalinar does, but rather when he closes his eyes or when he thinks about them—they're in the back of his mind, and they don't dominate his thoughts unless he clears his other senses. Secondly, notice that Nale claims Szeth's condition is related to the powers he held. The powers of a Herald. My conclusion may be controversial, and I see room for doubt despite with the evidence I have presented above, but I believe that part of the Herald's madness comes from torture by the Unmade. I still believe that regret plays a large role in the madness experienced by Dalinar, Jezrien, and Szeth. After all, Odium's speech to Dalinar seems to claim that he would escape his regrets and the voices in his mind if he gave in to his control and that of Nergaoul. The Thrill seems to prevent people from feeling remorse. I believe that these voices don't come from the Unmade, but rather from the profound pain of denying their influence and recognizing the horrors they have forced you to do. It is some form of backlash after Connecting with the investure of one of the Unmade. Szeth experienced this same phenomenon because he drew upon powers tied to Jezrien. It's clear that Jezrien regrets something. His voices must represent some group of people, and he explicitly states that it was his fault that he "attracted", "befriended", and "courted" one of the Unmade. But as far as we know, Jezrien isn't some sort of mass murderer, right? At least, I doubt he regrets killing the Voidbringers who threatened humanity. Instead, I turn to Kaladin for this one. As a Windrunner, Kaladin must share some characteristics with Jezrien. The whole ideology of his order is modeled after Jezrien. Now imagine how Kaladin would feel if his "weakness" lead to the return of a Desolation and the deaths of thousands. Thus, I think Jezrien, much like Kaladin, has regrets over the people he failed to save. The screams he hears in his head are the people (perhaps both human and parsh) who died in battle because Jezrien gave in to torture. More specifically, this torture associated with one of the Unmade, who Jezrien could have blamed in the same manner that Dalinar could have blamed Nergaoul for his murders. A have a variant to this theory, which I'm not sure I fully believe, but which think deserves some thought: the Unmade were un-made from the Heralds. They are twisted, warped, and corrupted aspects of the Herald's souls that have been separated throughout their many millennia of torture. This explains why Jezrien says that they "ripped my brain out and made it dance! I watched." This might also explain why Ishar is said to be "whole": there is no Unmade created from him. (Thus 9 Unmade and 10 Heralds) Regardless of whether they were created from the Heralds, I believe that each of the Unmade were bound to a certain Herald, and that they inhabited Braize between the Desolations. This would give them the ability to be directly involved in the torture of the Heralds. I'm also not sure if it makes sense in the first place for the Unmade to have hung around between Desolations, since they would be the lone forces of Odium and would leave themselves vulnerable to the Knights Radiant. That said, there's an excellent counterpoint for this in the Midnight Essence from Dalinar's vision. One of the Knights in the vision says: Dang, now I'm dying to know what she was about to say about Harkaylain. Since that info is missing, the implications are rather ambiguous. It would be a reasonable argument to say that this implies that Re-shephir is being contained on Roshar at the time, but also that Harkaylain is taking the appearance of the Essence as a sign that one of the Heralds has broken and that the Unmade has been allowed to return. Anyway, that little debate aside, my theory is that Ishar is the Herald not associated with one of the Unmade, because of this WoB that Bondsmiths do not have a corollary among the Unmade. This means that, until Taln's breaking in Way of Kings, only eight of the Unmade were on Roshar, and leads to my second theory: that one of the Unmade, specifically Chemoarish, has been missing from Roshar. This probably seems like the wildest claim I've made yet, but it comes from analysis of Hessi's Mythica. While Hessi certainly seems to hit the nail on the head quite often, she admits that she isn't completely confident in her findings. Notably, she was only able to confidently name eight of the nine Unmade. However, she does accurately propose Dai-gonarthis as the ninth Unmade. But as a twist from Sanderson, this doesn't make very much sense. He cannot expect us to doubt that Dai-gonarthis was one of the Unmade, since he has been referenced many other times as the Black Fisher. Sanderson could, instead, be telling us that Dai-gonarthis is more sneaky and less well-known, but this is odd because Hessi was able to tie it to the scouring of Aimia. Instead, I think that this is a misdirection. Hessi worries that "There are many legends and names that I could have misinterpreted, conflating two Unmade into one." Conversely, I believe that she has made the opposite mistake in an attempt to reach the value of 9. Why? Let's take a look at all the information we have on the Unmade outside of Mythica and see how Hessi stacks up: Ashertmarn: the Heart of the Revel, whom we see in action. Hessi's ideas are supported. Ba-Ado-Mishram: mentioned in the epigraph of chapter 80 by one of the Radiants who left behind a gemstone. Supports Hessi's claim that she empowered the Parsh during the False Desolation, and implies that Melishi somehow severed this connection and captured her. Chemoarish: Nothing. This name is never mentioned by any character outside Mythica, although somebody in Bavland swears by the Dustmother (which Hessi claims is a nickname for Chemoarish). This, however, is not a concrete indication that the "Dustmother" is an Unmade. Dai-Gonarthis: mentioned a Death Rattle, which also calls it the Black Fisher. Jezrien also refers to the Black Fisher. Despite Hessi's doubts, it is unequivocally an Unmade. Moelach: first described by Taravangian as the source of the Death Rattles. Jezrien says he can feel Moelach scraping at time. Hessi was spot-on with this one. Nergaoul: also first described by Taravangian. Literally seen in the open and captured by Dalinar at the end of Oathbringer. Completely follows Hessi's description. Re-Shephir: her Midnight Essence is seen in Dalinar's vision, and then she is mentioned in a death rattle as the Midnight Mother. Shallan encounters her in Urithiru. Hessi correctly named her but didn't seem to know much about her characteristics. Sja-Anat: we see her active in Kholinar during Oathbringer, corrupting various spren. Fits Hessi's description. Yelig-nar: Nohadon describes Yelig-nar killing his servants. We see him in Oathbringer inhabiting Aesudan and then Amaram. Hessi was also pretty spot-on about him. After seeing this, doesn't Chemoarish kind of jump out at you? We have seen hard, textual evidence for all eight of the other Unmade, but Chemoarish has never even been mentioned. In addition, we have evidence of all other Unmade besides Yelig-nar being present on Roshar before the onset of the new Desolation: Ashertmarn probably was in Kholinar even before the True Desolation began, Ba-Ad-Mishram is imprisoned, Dai-Gonarthis did something to Aimia, Moelach and Nergaoul have been drifting around, Re-Shephir was in Urithiru, and Hessi seems to have documentation of Sja-Anat's influence on villages. Finally, this is what Hessi herself has to say about Chemoarish: I do not believe that this is a coincidence. Chemoarish may be the real name of one of the Unmade, but the myths ascribed to Chemoarish over the past 4500 years are actually myths about the Nightwatcher. The mish-mashing of Chemoarish lore from before Aherietiam and the lore of the Nightwatcher is what makes her so hard for Hessi to characterize. This makes sense considering the opinion that those in Vorin culture have of the Nightwatcher and the Old Magic being evil and pagan. Instead, I think that one of the Unmade, quite probably Chemoarish, has been trapped on Braize up until the moment that Taln broke under his torture. This explains their absence from the past 4500 years of mythology and lore, during which they should have been roaming free to influence the world. If this theory is true, I'm excited to see what their true nature might be. TL;DR: Jezrien's ravings seem to indicate he was tortured by one of the Unmade, so I think that the Unmade were actually trapped on Braize between desolations. Ishar doesn't have an Unmade counterpart, leading to 9 Unmade. Taln, however, does have a counterpart who has been stuck on Braize for 4500 years. This is why Hessi is only able to pin down 8 Unmade in Mythica, and why we have conspicuously little information about Chemoarish. Edit 2: It just occurred to me that Chemoarish may not have only been mixed together with the Nightwatcher, but with Chanarach, patron herald of the Dustbringers. They're names are kind of similar, and this could be why Chemoarish is called the Dustmother. If this is true, then the figure that Hessi calls Chemoarish is actually born from confusing the mythologies of the Nightwatcher, Chanarach, and the actual Unmade Chemoarish.

Not sure if crazy but this is such a minor theory with no evidence that it doesn't warrant it's own post, so it's going in here. It's more of a thought than a theory, actually. I just had the idea that if Odium wants an incredibly deadly champion, he should look to the Shin. It's pretty clear to us in Oathbringer, and has been speculated even before then, that certain members of the Shin train with the Honorblades. Most people tend to think that the Stone Shamans do so, and that Szeth was one of them, but that's not really important for this theory. All we need to confirm is that Szeth didn't train with just the two surges that his honorblade granted; he also practiced skating to emulate the surge of abrasion. Imagine granting a bond with Yelig-nar to somebody with Szeth's training. Odium said that he wanted a champion who dominates the battlefield like the sun dominates the sky, and I think this is one way to get there. (Extra points for religious parallelism there since Szeth calls the Sun the god of gods.) I'm not really trying to speculate on how the story would get to this point, just pointing out that it could be a strategic move for Odium to seek out then Shin when trying to make his champion. Also I agree that this wouldn't be as thematically satisfying as having a character who we know, such as Moash, become his champion.

My own personal interpretation of that song was that the Singers destroyed the Plains, but not with the help of their gods (Odium). For support, I turn to Kabsal's demonstration of the formation of the Dawncities from sand. They didn't shows us that for nothing, and then imply that the Dawnsingers (the pre-Odium parsh people) built these cities. If you listen to Shallan's interpretation of how the Shattered Plains was formed, it's not a stretch to believe that they are the consequence of the power wielded to form the Dawncities multiplied by a thousand. I believe that the Singers wielded some ancient form of Honor or Cultivation's Power from back when they were the Dawnsingers, which allowed them to sing together and summon an earthquake, much like how stormform allowed them to summon the Everstorm. How this is associated with their escape from Odium's influence isn't clear. (original post from 2016 here:) That was, however, my theory before Oathbringer, when we thought that Sesemalex Dar (which is built in trenches in the ground) was a Dawncity for some reason. I think people agree now that the Dawncities are actually the 10 cities where Oathgates are located, aka the seats of the Silver Kingdoms, which aren't all built into the ground. This could completely mess up my theory because above-ground cities don't really fit the Kabsal sand-in-a-plate thing. Edit: Forgot to mention problems with the timeline of Honor's death. Honor survived Ahareitiam and died some unknown time after, perhaps around the time of the Recreance. Stormseat, meanwhile, is said to have been shattered during Ahareitiam, although the accuracy of this statement is disputed. I just looked it up on Coppermind, the page for Stormseat says this: Link: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Stormseat I realize this punches a hole into my theory as well, although I still find it likely that the shattering of Stormseat was caused by Dawnsigner power, those who did it are not the same as the Listeners who later inhabited the Shattered Plains. Either way, however, this unequivocally places the shattering of the Plains and the death of Honor at two wildly different points in time.

This theory where I dissect Mraize's letter to Shallan in Oathbringer: TL;DR: Pattern says the letter contains a lie, I'm interpreting it as a cue. I don't trust Mraize's claim that Helaran was sent by the Skybreakers to kill Amaram as a strike against the Sons of Honor: although it would be consistent with their motivations, it does not match the history that we have observed between these two groups. My personal theory is that Helaran's strike was a tactic to draw out Kaladin.

Sure! Thanks for considering it worthy haha ^_^.

You're right, this could explain why they're not constantly sending assassins after Amaram. However, (Rhythm of War Prologue spoilers)

Wow, we did come to pretty different conclusions about the last few lines of the letter, although I believe we agree on most of what comes before. You make a good point that we don't really know whether or not Amaram was doing anything at the time, and he could have been making himself more threatening to the Skybreakers. My analysis definitely assumed, perhaps too hastily, that the Sons of Honor weren't terribly productive following Gavilar's death. I believed this primarily because we haven't seen them actually influence the turn of events. Venli, being guided by Ulim, was the driving actor behind the new Desolation after Gavilar's assassination. The goal of the Sons is accomplished, but they weren't the ones who orchestrated it. But for all we know, they had some other scheme cooking which didn't fully execute before Venli's success. You also bring up the possibility that Helaran was acting on his own because his "opportunity was slipping." That could maybe explain why there were no further attempts on Amaram's life. However, I do very firmly believe that—although there are many plausible alternatives to the theory I gave on my original post—the interaction between the Skybreakers and the Sons of Honor is much more complicated than Mraize would have Shallan believe. Despite their opposite ideologies, something more is going on and they're clearly not especially intent killing each other off given the number of missed opportunities they've had to do so, and the lack of accusations that Gavilar and Amaram have against them. Edit: Forgot to say this, but I'd be interested to read the thread in which you made that original line-by-line analysis! Could you link the thread or tell me its name? And thanks for the nice points and analysis as well; I like seeing how other people interpret the same text!

Hmmm. I agree that it is possible, but far from definite, that Gavilar heard about Szeth's abilities while he was preparing to fight. However, descriptions of Szeth were so abuzz with rumor and misunderstanding that I doubt it would have been possible to completely rule out the possibility that he was a Skybreaker.

Ah, nice point! I can't believe I left Lin Davar's Ghostblood connections out of my analysis. With all the animosity between Helaran and Lin, this does hint toward a possible conflict between the Skybreakers and the Ghostbloods. However, I don't have a clue when Lin started associating with them. I think it probably started after Shallan's mother tried to kill her, but I don't think we have evidence to say for sure. We also don't know he if was already affiliated with the Ghostbloods at the time that Helaran showed up with a Shardblade and then left (please correct me if you actually have evidence regarding this, I don't remember the fine details very well). As for the unmade, perhaps that helps patch up the explanation that the Ghostbloods give for how Shallan's mother acts, but I'm not sure how they would influence the situation as a whole. I just went back and reread the Way of Kings prologue, and i still didn't find any instance where Szeth uses Adhesion against Gavilar. To be clear, I know that Szeth uses Adhesion during his assault on the palace guard, I just didn't find any instance where Gavilar would have witnessed him using it. I'm making that distinction because my point is that Gavilar should have been unable to determine whether Szeth was using Windrunner or Skybreaker surges. Please correct me and cite the specific instance if I'm wrong! Thanks! I hope it was insightful! I tend to be pretty bad at spotting small stuff during my initial reads (I'm terrible at spotting worldhoppers) so I'm trying to improve at this sort of thing. Wow, I haven't seen that WoB before. Besides the Ghostbloods, Skybreakers, and Sons of Honor, the only other secret societies I can think of are the Pattern (Taravangian's peeps) and maybe the Dysian Aimians (aka sleepless immortals)? I'm not sure if the Dysian Aimians count, but they do seem to have a pretty sneaky surveillance network. Also, going off of what Shallan hears when she eavesdrops on Mraize, perhaps the mad herald Ishar (going by Tezim, warlord of Tukar) has a society of his own. At least, he's somebody the Ghostbloods keep an eye on. Maybe we should also include the 17th shard, since we see them searching for Hoid at the Purelake. Still, that's a lot of secret societies that we seem to know absolutely nothing about. Yikes. That's a good point, we definitely have textual evidence that the Ghostbloods don't like Amaram. Plus, unlike the Skybreakers, it might actually have been a challenge for the Ghostbloods to kill Amaram after he obtained Shards, so it would explain the lack of follow-up attempts. However, I well say that if Helaran's goal is indeed to kill Amaram, he's almost hilarious (Helar-iously? Hmm, I'll leave the puns to Shallan) bad at his job. I'm taking another look at chapter 47 of WoK, and he's not being that efficient about it. He rides past Amaram and kills his horse first, then lets himself be distracted by Kaladin's squad moments before he's about to finish Amaram off. He spends way too long engaging Kaladin, and lets Amaram crawl away a good distance. As a full shardbearer, he should have just ignored Kaladin and crushed Amaram on the spot. Also: a mini-theory I forgot to include (and will add to my original post): Mraize's phrasing about Tien's death is interesting. The exact quote is "From our spying upon the Skybreakers, we have records showing the only member of Amaram's army to have bonded a spren was long since eliminated." Eliminated. Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid, but should we just believe the Skybreakers knew of Tien, yet did nothing? Tien's completely innocent of any crimes, so it protects him from their direct assassination but I wouldn't put it against the Skybreakers to pull a few strings and make sure a messenger boy winds up on the front lines of combat. If this mini-theory is true, then it has pretty big implications about how Kaladin might react towards the Skybreakers if he ever find this out.

I've started a reread of Oathbringer in anticipation for Rhythm of War, and just thought I'd spend way too long dissecting like one line that Pattern says. So, at the beginning of Chapter 40 of Oathbringer we have a letter sent to Shallan by the Ghostbloods explaining stuff about the Sons of Honor and the Skybreakers. After we get to read the letter, (on page 422 of the hardcover) Pattern drops this: Now, I know Pattern likes to drop the word "lies" in a crap ton of places that most of us wouldn't, and I don't believe that he's some sort of lie detector who will 100% always know when a lie is there. However, I do believe that the Branderson pays very, very deep attention to his writing and that he may have dropped this line as a flag to this reader, like "Hey, this thing is written by the Ghostbloods, and they have no reason to tell the whole truth to Shallan: just enough of the truth to keep her hooked and convinced that they have information she doesn't. Take the cue." Well, do I think there is any hard, textual evidence that this letter is a bit cremmy? Yes, but let's work it all out. Yes, I'm going to call it "crem" instead of "BS," just live with it. Here's the outline of the points that the letter made: Besides the Ghostbloods, there are (at least) two other secret societies: the Sons of Honor and the Skybreakers. Gavilar and Amaram were members of the Sons of Honor. The Sons of Honor sought to return the Desolation in order to strengthen the Vorin church, and this lead to Gavilar's assassination (although others also wanted him dead). The Skybreakers, lead by Nale, did not betray their oaths and have persisted since the Recreance. Nale kills those who are on the verge of becoming Radiants, or sends his Skybreakers/acolytes to do so because he fears new Radiants will lead to a new Desolation. (Alternatively, he turns them into Skybreakers if they are properly aligned) Shallan's mother was associated with the Skybreakers, who may have detected a budding Radiant in her household. This lead to her attempt to murder Shallan. However, the Skybreakers ended up believing this Helaran was the one bonding a spren. Helaran was sent to kill Amaram because of his affiliation with the Sons of Honor. The Skybreakers knew about a member of Amaram's army about to bond a spren, and this person was "eliminated." Kaladin was unknown to them, because otherwise he'd be dead. Now, let's sift through these 5 points and see if we find any crem. Point 1: No crem detected. This pretty much confirms what we see from Amaram's chapter in Words of Radiance about the Sons of Honor, and what Szeth sees later on in Oathbringer. The reference to others wanting Gavilar dead makes sense when you remember his last words about Sadeas and Thaidakar. I might modify the "vorin" bit just because Gavilar seems very cosmere-aware and less religious than just plain power hungry but otherwise this seems accurate. Point 2: No crem detected. We've seen this happen multiple times, and heard Nale's monologue. Point 3: Probably some crem. Some stuff isn't adding up here. Shallan's mom clearly knew that Shallan was the Radiant, so why would the Skybreakers suddenly decide that it's Helaran? They do not explain how Shallan's mother knows about Shallan's bond while the rest of the Skybreakers do not, and this looks like a major hole in the Ghostblood's story. At the very least, they are leaving out some details about either Shallan's mother or Helaran's affiliation. (warning: very minor spoiler for the Rhythm of War Prologue, which Brandon has read online.) Point 4: This is where my crem alarm went off. Let's think this one through. At first glance, the Skybreakers and the Sons of Honor have obvious opposing ideals and it's easy to buy that the Skybreakers would assassinate one of the Sons of Honor. But let's take a closer inspection and see if we've read any hard evidence of these two groups fighting. No. In fact, we've seen the opposite. Let's also look, again, at what Gavilar says as he's dying. He thinks he's been assassinated by either Sadeas or Thaidakar, not by the Skybreakers. Despite the fact that his assassin can STORMING FLY. Throughout his entire battle with Gavilar, Szeth only uses his surge of Gravitation. (okay tbh I'm not rereading to check but I'm pretty darn sure Szeth doesn't try to stick stuff to Gavilar with Adhesion, and also Decay probably wouldn't work against Shardplate so Gavilar has no reason not to believe he's using Skybreaker surges). The fact that Gavilar doesn't think his FLYING, GLOWING assassin is a Skybreaker would be simply ridiculous if he knew that they opposed him. (I'm also assuming Gavilar knows about the Skybreakers from his conversation with Nale). Well, you might say that we're now talking about Gavilar when we should really be talking about Amaram. That's a fair point, so let's look a the timing and execution here. First of all, why now? The Sons of Honor don't seem to have had much of a plan following Gavilar's assassination, besides the extensive mapping of the Shattered Plains which Amaram is caught conducting by Shallan. But at this point in time, Amaram isn't in the Shattered Plains at all: he's fighting some random skirmishes in the middle of Alethkar. Why would they Skybreakers kill him now, when they left him alone when the Sons of Honor were on the verge of success during the night of Gavilar's death, and when he actually decided to go to the Plains later? The execution is also, like, really weird. The Ghostbloods claim that Helaran was sent to kill Amaram as a test, but it's hardly a test of skill for a full Shardbearer to take down a plain warrior. If this is a test, it's a wimpy one. And after Helaran's failure, why not send another assassin? Yes, Amaram is a bit beefier as a full shardbearer now but we clearly see Szeth, who is weaker than a 3rd oath Windrunner, best multiple full shardbearers (using mostly gravitation, I might add) and we know there are 3rd and 4th ideal Skybreakers along with 5th ideal Nale. Any of these guys could easily wallop Amaram's not-so-sorry chull straight to Braize. The only argument you might make is that it would attract a ton of attention, but guess who's flying around murdering full shardbearers at the time? Szeth would be the perfect cover story: if the Skybreakers assassinated Amaram at any point during the first two books, it would have been pinned on Szeth, no questions asked. What an unfathomably stupid opportunity to ignore. Also, much like Gavilar, Amaram thinks Thaidakar is to blame (although Amaram may not know of the Skybreakers). I simply cannot buy that the Skybreakers want Amaram dead. But wait, how does this make any sense? These two groups are blatantly opposed in intention. My best guess is that Nale would kinda like being revered as who he is and be able to enforce the law, and that he's fine with Radiants and a Desolation as long as he's in charge of directing the events—hence his collaboration with Gavilar. Point 5: Possible crem. The proto-radiant mentioned here seems to be Tien, and he does die. So why am I calling out some crem? Because of all the crem in point 4. If Helaran wasn't sent to kill Amaram, why was he there? How could they have noticed Tien, but not Kaladin? I think that Helaran WAS sent to kill Kaladin, and that his attack on Amaram was a tactic to draw Kaladin out. They're on a massive battlefield, and it's not really easy to pin down where one random soldier might be. But if you know they've got the ideals of a Windrunner, you know that they're sure as hell going to run to protect their commanding officer. Kaladin hasn't committed any crimes (even petty ones) that they could pin on him, so they had to kill him in a battle since that's not really illegal I guess? Meanwhile, the Ghostbloods don't tell Shallan about this so they can claim that the Skybreakers want to kill the Sons of Honor. As for why Kaladin wasn't killed by the Skybreakers while he was a slave, I think Amaram's cover-up may have actually worked. The Skybreakers assumed that Helaran's mission was accomplished (and that Amaram killed him) after they were unable to detect any further radiant activity from the area. At the very least, I think this is easier to explain than all the problems with Point 4. So, what's the point? If my analysis is correct, it seems like the Ghostbloods are trying to frame the Skybreakers for actions against the Sons of Honor. Conspicuously missing from the letter is any mention of where the Ghostbloods themselves stand on this conflict. We know that both Gavilar and Amaram think Thaidakar wants to murder them, and that Thaidakar is connected to the Ghostbloods. Why not tell Shallan that the Ghostbloods are in conflict with the Sons of Honor? Shallan is ideologically opposed to the Sons so it would even make sense for the Ghostbloods to make the case that they don't like each other. This seems like a glaring detail to omit. Personally, I think that the reason the Ghostbloods and Sons of Honor are in conflict is something pretty nefarious that they aren't willing to reveal, and that they thus want to paint as much antagonism as possible on both the Skybreakers and the Sons so that Shallan doesn't hate the Ghostbloods even more. So, that's been my absurdly long analysis stemming from a single sentence uttered by Pattern. Yup. There ya go. I'd like to hear everybody's thoughts, and feel free to murder me with words if you disagree with my breakdown. Edit: forgot to include this mini-theory originally Mraize's phrasing about Tien's death is interesting. The exact quote is "From our spying upon the Skybreakers, we have records showing the only member of Amaram's army to have bonded a spren was long since eliminated." Eliminated. Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid, but should we just believe the Skybreakers knew of Tien, yet did nothing? Tien's completely innocent of any crimes, so it protects him from their direct assassination but I wouldn't put it against the Skybreakers to pull a few strings and make sure a messenger boy winds up on the front lines of combat. If this mini-theory is true, then it has pretty big implications about how Kaladin might react towards the Skybreakers if he ever find this out.

OOoooh, I didn't consider the planets around Threnody to be possible candidates as well. Good thinking!

(Sorry if this thread has already begun elsewhere and I just haven't spotted it since I didn't see this WoB until now) So, my first thought upon seeing this WoB was that it was something like Sel?? You could construe the Dor to be the "corpse" of two shards. However, it's in the coginitive realm and I'm not sure if that counts as "on" the planet. Furthermore, Brandon seems to refer to *a* god and not two, so the Dor doesn't quite fit. Thinking about more planets which we actually know, could one say that Roshar has Honor's corpse? I would call cognitive shadows "ghosts" rather than corpses, so the Stormfather doesn't fit the definition for me, but maybe from a different interpretation it does. Or just all the investure he left behind could count. Next up, Threnody? Bits of Ambition landed on here after they died right? I'd say this is the most probably option out of the planets that we know to be what Brandon is referring to here. Of course, Brandon is likely to be talking about a planet which we don't know, so either there's been some more shard deaths and one of them left behind some sort of corpse or: I automatically assumed that "god" means "shard" but what if he's referring to Adonalsium? Is his "corpse" somehow lying around on a planet (maybe Yolen?)? What would his corpse be? His investure is now the shards so there's no Dor situation going on wherever he died (probably), but does this mean he had a body in the physical realm? Sort of like Vin's and Ati's bodies appearing after they died? A cognitive shadow (though, as I said, I wouldn't call this a corpse)? Seriously, does anybody have a good idea about what Brandon is referring to here? My bet is on Threnody or a brand new planet.

Thanks!! Yeah, I realized after posting this that I didn't discuss AT ALL how M-Bot could have transferred himself to a new computer at the end of Starsight, which puts a pretty big hole into my theory that he is a Figment. The rest of the stuff I discussed still holds though.

I haven't found a thread about this yet but I've seen several comments about a connection between AI and figments, so I'm probably not singular in thinking this. M-Bot certainly has some connections to figments. Whether or not he IS one... well that might be a stretch, but let's look at the details first. I'm also running through several *other* theories I haven't seen discussed, but I think are relevant so let's go (long post ahead): M-Bot has some Figment Technology: Multiple characters, including Cuna and Vapor, have talked about an alliance between humans and figments, and heavily implied that the technology that MBot is equipped with is largely figment in origin. Here's some quotes: Cuna: Vapor: Now, the connecting thread between these two things is obviously the holograms that M-Bot has access to. This specific technology was almost definitely invented from figments—I don't think anybody can argue that the evidence doesn't point towards it—but what about the other stuff on M-Bot? How much of MBot's tech is figment in origin? All of it? We know that M-Bot's performance is greater than the interceptors provided by the Superiority (Spensa comments on this). Are the better GravCaps on M-Bot also a figment invention? Or the atmospheric scoops that allow Spensa to ignore a lot of wind resistance issues? M-Bot Uses Cytonic Computing? Most importantly, what about M-Bot himself? Are incredibly advanced AI's a creation of the figments? And M-Bot isn't just self-aware, he has amazing decryption abilities, and (I'm no computer scientist so I can't really say this for sure) but he might be exceeding the limits of classical computing? Modern encryption keys aren't even breakable by supercomputers in any reasonable amount of time and I don't think that the encryption used throughout the galaxy in Starsight is supposed to somehow be weaker than ours. Is M-Bot some type of quantum computer? For this bit, I don't think it's a stretch to suspect that M-Bot's processing speed comes from some sort of cytonic technology. He said the hologram bracelet that Spensa wears would normally have incorporated FTL communication in it, and at the end of the book his thinking is incredibly sluggish until they near the door to the... other place (is there a name we have in this community for it?). If his processing is cytonic, it could mean that his calculations per second are literally infinite, no longer constrained by the rate of flow of electrons. Please correct me if you have actual computer expertise, but I think that this would easily explain his ability to break through encryptions so easily: as long as it is possible to decrypt, even if it would take a classical supercomputer millions of years, M-Bot can do it in (literally) zero time. Why Figments? First of all, I had to wonder why the figment's technology is the most advanced. Are they the most intelligent species in the galaxy? Or perhaps their capability to inhabit and manipulate electrical devices allows them to have a more intimate understanding of them, or even the ability to assemble them with precision: making them more compact, efficient, and sleek. After all, the holograms, gravcaps, and atmospheric scoops on M-Bot aren't altogether new devices, just smaller and/or more effective versions of technology that other people in the galaxy have access to. Perhaps there's nothing fundamentally new about them, and their improvements arise from the unique assembly process that a figment is able to perform. This, however, explains nothing about the AI on M-Bot. He is clearly more than a more efficient version of other computers. Some Weird Details Okay, one final thing before I put everything together: How do figments die?? M-Bot mentions that "many died in the human wars" (Pg 203), but we see Vapor survive, like, a lot. M-Bot clearly states they can survive in the vacuum of space, and Vapor clearly does so. More impressively, Vapor survived after the drone who she was inhabiting was destroyed by Brade—so her particulates were not damaged by the destructor fire. Vapor also seems to be very, very old (which would also make sense because M-Bot mentions on Pg 203 that they reproduce rarely: slower reproduction are very closely correlated to longer lifespan. Just look at the greenland shark.) and has memories of previous delver attacks (please correct me if I'm wrong, I can't remember where she said this and didn't want to look through the whole book searching for it.) So, if figments are functionally immortal, what gives? How did so many of them die? Second weird detail: Cuna mentions that the figments and humans had an alliance during the "first war." I think she means the first out of the three human conquests. But what about after? Were they no longer allies during the second and third conflicts, and why? Tying it Together Perhaps M-Bot is a figment, one that has been captured by humans and had its memories wiped. But why would they do this? I think there's a compelling case to be made for the many advantages this provides. First of all, there's some parallelism to be drawn between M-Bot and figments both being extremely good at stealth and espionage, but that's mostly fluff and not a real argument. The most obvious reason to want a figment running your computer is its sapience. Although M-Bot begins the first book claiming his "personality" is really just a front put up by his "subroutines," he shows in Starsight that he certainly has one, while also making a case in Skyward that appearing to have a personality has several benefits, such as making the user experience more natural and comfortable. However, the humans who made M-Bot clearly wanted to keep his sapience in check. They wanted him to believe that he wasn't a true sentient being, and limited his autonomy. Why? To me, this strengthens the idea that his artificial intelligence isn't artificial at all, but rather it is true intelligence that has been forced to serve as a computer. And it points to a different reason for using figments than simply having a computer that talks: cytonics. Now, we haven't met a figment with cytonic capabilities, but it's not a stretch to believe that they either exist or existed, so let's focus for now on M-Bot. A previous post by "The traveller" (link here: ) has pointed out that M-Bot seems to have the "buzz" that cytonics are able to feel when they are near each other, although it is slight. In addition, as I pointed out above, M-Bot's incredible ability to crack encryption does not seem to fall in the realm of classical computing. I suggested that he uses cytonic communication, rather than electronic signals, to run calculations; but cytonic communication requires a living being. In Defending Elysium, we see that a single cytonic human can have their abilities amplified by electric devices, which handle all the routing and complex calculations needed to host thousands of FTL transmissions. What if M-Bot were a version of this, where electricity is merely used to boost the abilities of a single cytonic to run insane numbers of calculations? And at the core of this system is a cytonic figment who has been integrated into the CPU. There are two issues to sort out here: First of all, if M-Bot himself is cytonic, why even need a Doomslug hyperdrive? I believe there are two possible reasons. The first is the same reason as the Superiority: to avoid the delvers. Another potential reason, however, is that a cytonic may not be able to perform multiple cytonic abilities at once. In Defending Elysium, we see that Jason can't teleport and use his mindblades at the same time: it's either one or the other. And he is a very, very highly trained cytonic. This may be because of the shear number of mindblades that he had to create and the concentration that demanded, but I can argue that M-Bot's millions of calculations at a time amount to an equally demanding task. The second issue is much larger: how???? How did humans stick figments into computers, and wipe there memories, and prevent them from escaping? I think we can answer all three very elegantly by looking again at Defending Elysium (I know I'm referencing it a lot all of a sudden in the last part but I need to!). One of the central mysteries of the short story is Denise, who Jason eventually deduces has had her consciousness replaced by that of a varvax. But how? Out of all the alien species we've met, the varvax seem like the least viable ones to undergo this process. There are several biological reasons. Out of all the species that Spensa meets, the varvax in particular are the only ones that don't seem to fair well in a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, and instead need to be constantly surrounded by some unknown liquid. This suggests that their body chemistry is markedly different from humans: at the very least, their cells are adapted to a totally different concentration of water and likely have a different osmotic pressure from that of humans. Sticking their brain into a human head could be like dropping a saltwater fish into a freshwater pool. Probably not that good. Speaking of brain transplants, we don't even know if they have those: invertibrate and vertibrate nervous systems are vastly different (crabs have two different large nervous centers, so basically two brains?), so even if all life in the Starsight galaxy has the same evolutionary origin, and sci-fi bioengineering can pull off all of the stuff necessary to block an immune attack of (literally) alien proteins, varvax seem so divergent from humans that their nervous systems should by vastly incompatible. That's why I think the body switcheroo in Defending Elysium is some sort of cytonic phenomenon. Rather than having their brains swapped, Denise and Vahnn kept their brains but had their consciousnesses swapped. Sentience was moved from one set of atoms to a set with completely different chemistry and mechanics. And in the process, Vahnn experienced complete amnesia. So what if this happened to a figment? What if, instead of being a figment like Vapor who has inhabited electronics, M-Bot is a figment who has been body-swapped. Instead of gaseous particulates, M-Bot's body is now wires and metal. He is trapped because of the very form of his new body: a computer. One which, unlike the cloud that Vapor is composed of, can be destroyed by physical means. And, of course, M-Bot's memories of his figment life were erased when he was injected into his new body, much like Vahnn's memories were gone after his consciousness was implanted into Denise's brain. Of course, memory wiping isn't a necessary component of the transfer process: we see that the varvax possessing "Edmund" has retained their skills and memories from their previous life. However, I believe that the humans that created M-Bot would have wanted to wipe his memory of being a figment. Instead, M-Bot believes that he has always been a computer. If this process was performed on many, many figments during the first human incursion, it would explain why they were no longer allies for the next two. Meanwhile, these robot-figments would be more vulnerable to destruction than their gaseous counterparts and killed when the Superiority defeated the human fleets, explaining why it is said that many of them died during the war. The secrecy about their abilities may also make more sense: the Superiority is hiding the fact that figments are the secret behind creating advanced AIs, which falls in line with their view on the technology as dangerous. Speaking of which, this may also explain why AI draws delvers. Although I don't think M-Bot screams like the slugs do when he is being used, I do think that millions of calculations being performed through the cytonic realm wouldn't exactly be at the liking of the delvers EDIT: wow, just realized this a few minutes after posting but this could also explain how M-Bot can block Spensa from the cytonic attacks that allowed the Krell to control her dad. Well, that makes my theory. Hopefully I've thrown enough evidence at you, and somebody hasn't beaten me to this punch while I spent an hour writing this. For those of you who read the whole thing, wow thanks! For those who haven't, here's the Tl;dr: Tl;dr - Figments are somehow associated with the advanced tech seen on M-Bot - M-Bot has weird capabilities when it comes to breaking encryption that may defy classical computing: I think he's cytonic. - There are some mysteries surrounding how figments can die and their alliances in the past with humans. - I think that M-Bot is a cytonic figment who had its memory wiped through a consciousness transplantation process like the one that happened in Defending Elysium. - This would potentially explain the above mysteries, as well as other stuff like why delvers hate AI.

You're assuming that the scabbard is pure aluminum, but we know from MB Era 2 that certain alloys of aluminum resist allomancy, so I bet that these alloys would be capable of blocking Nightblood. These alloys are sturdier than aluminum and would likely allow a thinner scabbard to block a swing from Nightblood.

We actually get a description from Venli of the spren that animate the Thunderclasts when she peers into the Cognitive Realm: This leaves us with an interesting question as it could be interpreted that the Thunderclast spren are actually cognitive shadows, like the Fused. However, Venli might not be able to discern the difference. I'm assuming that she was able to discern the spirits there as Fused while Kaladin, Adolin, and Shallan just called them "voidspren" because Venli saw some resemblance between them and the Fused that Kaladin & co. did not. Thus, perhaps the Thunderclasts did somehow resemble giant Singers but we don't know for certain.

Renarin genuinely has epilepsy. Very light spoilers for Oathbringer, but we have his viewpoint a few times and his description of the fits doesn't involve spren screaming. If you're thinking of his "fit" in the dueling grounds during Adolin's match, that was quite possibly caused by the spren screams but most of his fits don't seem to be related to it.

The most popular theory is that it's the representation of the spiritual realm from the perspective of the cognitive realm.

Kelsier has been confirmed by WoB not to have a spike, so although he was being influenced by Ruin's plans, Ruin was not controlling his motions and therefore he did not have the intent necessary to perform hemalurgy. Even if he had, Kelsier died after being stabbed by the spear, but a hemalurgic spike would not kill: vital organs actually move to accommodate the spike and keep the subject alive. (Otherwise, Inquisitors would be very very dead). And if we ignore that as well, Kelsier's cognitive shadow doesn't seem to have any of his mistborn powers so an extra hemalurgic power would likely mean nothing at that point.

There's also those hulking fused that Kaladin fought, the ones which grow carapace really quickly. Those are probably using Progression.

This makes sense to me, Gavilar’s plan could have been to ask the Listeners to reconnect with Ba Ado Mishram, starting a new false desolation.

Hey guys I'm a bit confused over whether or not feruchemical steel gives mental speed as well as physical speed. I know that Zinc already stores mental speed, which would indicate that steel doesn't, but the uses of steel shown in SoS seem to imply that steel does store mental speed. In SoS, Bleeder uses feruchemical steel to start a deadly gunfight. She makes 4 accurate shots from different parts of the room so quickly that nobody realizes she's shooter. Later in the book, when she's "assassinating the governor" she uses feruchemical speed: Immediately after this, she uses her speed, but Wax is inside one of Wayne's speed bubbles and is able to observe her: All this seems to imply to me that the steel is speeding up Bleeder's thoughts. Otherwise, she wouldn't be able to react in the way that she is, shoot as precisely, or unlock a door while moving at such a speed. And, in case you're wondering, Bleeder could not be using both steel and zinc simultaneously during these passages. She only has one hemalurgic spike, in order to stay out of Sazed's influence, so it's impossible for her to have more than one feruchemical power at a time. Is this some inconsistency in Brandon's writing? Those are rare. I can't find any WoBs on the subject. If this is the case, what advantage does a full feruchemist get in using zinc instead of steel? Is zinc more efficient at granting mental speed than steel is? Or does zinc improve mental capability in other ways as well? (like speed of problem solving/critical thinking)